There is a saying among affiliate marketers who use an autoresponder service and an opt-in list combined with sales orientated e-mailing campaigns to market their affiliate products, this slogan is “the money is in the list”. Historically this form of affiliate marketing has proven to provide excellent results. However, what to do if you do not have an opt-in list? Below we will explore some of the ways in which you can begin to build your own list.The quickest way to build a large mailing list is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to send potential new subscribers to a landing page designed to capture their e-mail address. Although this can obviously be costly, if we consider that most affiliate marketers consider a 10% conversion ratio from all offers they send via their autoresponder service, we can see that any capital outlay can quickly be recovered.

A cheaper option is to rely solely upon organic website traffic, obviously you will need to have some form a website already active, and you will encourage visitors to your site who arrive via a search engine to subscribe to your mailing list. Almost every affiliate marketer likes to sweeten the pot at this point, by offering something free to the visitor in exchange for their subscription. Many people choose to give away a free report, something like a short e-book, which pertains to the content of the website you are hoping to attract subscribers to. This is a very good way of attracting mailing list subscriptions, if you use a well written report in this way you will not only be getting a subscription, but you will have primed prospective customers by giving them a taste of the kind of information they will receive when they purchase one of your main Affiliate products.

Once you have a suitable list, you can begin to exploited and market your affiliate products directly to the kinds of customers who are more likely to purchase the products you promote as an affiliate marketer. Most affiliate marketers will create a series of e-mails, which will be sent automatically to the members of their opt-in list by their autoresponder service. These e-mails were usually create a sales funnel, initially building buzz and interest in affiliate products that the affiliate marketer is about to launch, usually offering discounts if the recipient orders early, and finally making the product available. Affiliate marketers also send follow-up e-mails, promoting backend or companion products once the main product has been purchased.

Anyone who is serious about affiliate marketing needs to consider building their own mailing list. By using one of the many excellent autoresponder services such as GetResponse.com or Aweber.com to provide them with a vehicle allowing them to make direct contact with the target marketing customers who are most likely to purchase their products.

In recent years, it has been proven time and time again that mailing lists are an invaluable tool for the affiliate marketer.

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Posted in Autoresponders How to... by Paul Donovan 2 Comments